If She Only Knew by Lisa Jackson Page A

one side of his mouth to the other.
    â€œWell, since I’m here, just humor me, all right?” He lifted a bushy eyebrow and she nodded. “You were with Pam Delacroix.”
    â€œSo I was told.”
    â€œAnd you knew her from . . . ?”
    â€œI, uh, my husband said she was a friend of mine. But . . .”
    â€œYou don’t remember.”
    â€œThat’s right.” She frowned, angry with herself. “I think I’m going to sound like a broken record.”
    â€œYes.”
    She reached for her juice and sipped as the detective went through a series of questions for which she had no answers. Outside the room, medication carts rattled, people talked, the bell for the elevator doors chimed. Inside 505, the feeling was tense and Marla didn’t like the detective’s attitude—as if she’d caused the accident and nearly killed herself intentionally. “You know, this feels a little like an inquisition,” she finally said. She fiddled with her straw, then set her glass aside.
    â€œJust tryin’ to sort out everything.”
    â€œI really can’t help you.” Her back was beginning to go up, she was tired and her head was pounding like crazy.
    â€œYou were driving Pam Delacroix’s car, right?”
    â€œI . . . I guess so. That’s what everyone says, so I assume it’s true,” she said hotly. “Now, listen, don’t you have to let me talk to an attorney, Mirandaize me or whatever it’s called?”
    â€œ That you remember?”
    â€œI told you . . . little strange things. Maybe I saw it on an episode of . . . of . . .”
    â€œ NYPD Blue ? Law and Order ?”
    â€œI . . . I don’t know . . .”
    He studied her through quick, intelligent eyes. “You really want to call a lawyer? I’m not here to arrest you, you understand.”
    â€œI don’t have anything to hide.” At least nothing I can recall, she thought, but bit back the words. She just wanted this interview to be over, to close her eyes, to hope that her medication would kick in and fight the pain throbbing in her jaw and hammering at her skull. And she wanted to shake this feeling that her life was spinning out of control, that there were unspoken questions hanging in the air, questions that were somehow too evil, too incriminating to utter aloud.
    â€œOkay.” Paterno chewed his gum furiously between his back teeth. “How about the semi careening toward you? It jackknifed, went off the far side of the road and the driver— Charles Biggs—is barely holding on in a burn ward at a hospital across town. We’re hoping he wakes up and can remember something.”
    Marla went cold inside at the thought of the trucker. “The poor man,” she whispered, glancing out the window to the gray afternoon. Her fate suddenly didn’t seem so bad. She silently prayed that she hadn’t been the cause of the accident, that her negligence hadn’t killed her friend, a woman she couldn’t remember, as well as maimed a stranger she’d never met. A cloud of depression threatened to settle on her shoulders. How would she ever live with herself if it turned out the accident was her fault? Oh, God, please . . . no. I won’t be able to survive the guilt . . . Swallowing a thick lump in her throat, she gave herself a quick mental kick for this case of the “poor me” blues. “Why don’t you tell me what happened that night,” she suggested, deciding it was best to face the ugly truth rather than hearing what could very well be her family’s sugar-coated version. She impaled Paterno with her gaze. “I want to hear the facts.”
    â€œJust the facts, all the facts and nothing but the facts?”
    What was that, some kind of dumb joke? She lifted a shoulder. “I . . . I suppose.”
    â€œIt’s part of an old TV cop routine,” he said, and she realized he’d tried to